radioactive syrup
by unicorn guts
Summary: Ickis may or may not have made a grave mistake. Zim/Ickis. Multi-Chap.


Radioactive Syrup

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~_unicorn guts_

* * *

Ickis is sitting cross-legged on a bug infested throne of car parts and junk food wrappers. It had been exactly two hours ago that he had thrown himself at Oblina's ankles, begging for her advice after having his already low-self esteem crushed underneath The Gromble's "snuggle bears".

The Viewfinder is a cruel invention, constantly showing Ickis's mistakes to the entire Monster Acadamy class.

Ickis was feeling pretty low today, failing to scare a child at the tender age of six was pretty bad, and The Gromble's verbal punishments reached "You Don't Even Want to Know" status after that embarrassing display. Ickis pushed his palms into his eyes, and let the tears drip down his magenta wrists, he would never be as good as his Dad.

Oblina's bloody colored lips curl, reaching tentatively to pat Ickis on the head while she cooed, "There, there."

Oblina would no doubt be a good teacher, her talents in scaring charmed the usually stolid Gromble, and Ickis desperately hoped that his friend would at least show him a couple of good tricks.

"I really need your help Oblina." Ickis sniffed, looking quite pitiful and Oblina's pale green eyes met the void of Ickis's mellow yellow with an intriguing passion.

"Now Ickis," Oblina says, haughty little voice that bordered on motherly as she wagged a black-and-white stripped finger in front of Ickis's face, the magenta monster follows it with his eyes in confusion. "You'll never be good at scaring if you don't believe in yourself."

Ickis's eyes are half-lidded, too emotionally drained to come up with a cheeky response to such a corny statement.

"But...I'm so bad at it."

"That isn't true, Icky!" The walking candy cane huffed, folding her thin arms and narrowing her eyes at a lone spider scuttling across Ickis's hand. "You have potential to be _terrifying_, and besides, you've scared humans before."

"Not as much as I should, The Gromble says I'm his worst student." Ickis says, floppy ears lowering in shame.

Oblina shakes her head again, before opening her mouth widely and sticking her hand down her throat, fishing for something inside. Ickis watches with a detached fascination, it was funny to him how Oblina could use her insides as some sort of purse-to a human, seeing this would be unnerving, a scream would bubble up their throat and Oblina would have another great scaring to show the viewfinder.

Everything Ickis did was 'cute', he could never come off as meancing or sinister, no matter how hard he tried. Being 'cute' was a terrible thing when you were the son of renowned student.

When Oblina finally found what she was looking for, she takes out surprisingly dry notes, written in her 'good student' script; neat and tiny.

"These should help you, read them carefully." She says, and Ickis nods excitedly.

Oblina mumbles something about her 'beauty rest' as Ickis descended down from the hood of a car and down the steps of makeshift stairs that consisted of slowly rotting wood and milk cartons.

"Thank you!" He shouts to her back, the dim light of the moon brightened her black stripes and then darkened again as she made her way towards the entrace of the Acadamy.

XXXXX

Ickis had _briefly_ looked over the notes, realizing he wasn't very good at studying in the first place and that he couldn't really read Oblina's fancy cursive. He considered his friend's advice and took the 'believe in yourself' thing in stride.

After a while, Ickis decided he felt pretty good, he made his way out of the junkyard and into the city streets-hiding behind bushes until he came across a sewer that he could lurk in.

Ickis was determined to scare a human, and it _would_ be the greatest scare The Gromble would ever see.

XXXXX

It's the perfect setting, a bland looking suburbia that grew eerily dark by night fall, not even the artificial light that showered the sidewalks in what was barely slits could make it less nerve wrecking-people who were walking alone would be filled with uncertainty, dread, and paranoia, the three essential elements of fear.

All of what a certain little monster needed.

Zim however, was not scared very easily.

The Irken was currently taking his perfectly NORMAL dog GIR out for a walk, it's what NORMAL human children with pets did. And seeing how Zim was such a NORMAL human, he was walking (actually dragging GIR on his back) his dog amongst the dark streets and minding his own buisness like any innocent little earth larva.

(Yellow eyes peak from underneath a sewage hatch, watching it's target with greedy eyes, waiting for the human(?) to come closer.)

Zim yanks GIR up by his leash, the robot dog straightens up immediately and began to walk ahead of his master, the Irken had decided he had kept up appearences enough for today.

Zim began to goose step in the direction of his base.

There's a scuttle of dry leaves, Ickis's location had changed, closing in-

The trap had been set, tripped.

Like something out of a horror movie, Ickis jumped out from his posistion in the bush, arms outsretched and color squirming, flowing inside yellow eyes and filling them up to a demonic red. Heaving, heavy breaths accompined fearsome growling.

Ickis had managed to draw a startled yelp from the human(?), but before he could grow any larger, the human(?) quickly retaliated.

Too fast to see it coming, Ickis found himself winded, the scents of the area around him still flushed as he struggled for air. The little monster wheezed, unable to register any sort of thought at the lightning fast movement.

Zim's white teeth look like fangs, and with that green skin, he looks a lot like a life-size venus flytrap.

Ickis shrieks, the last thing he sees is gloved hands reaching towards him.

XXXXX

When Ickis comes to, fluorescent lights illuminated the room in one spot, shroding the rest in complete darkness. Ickis felt cold around his wrists and ankles, a tremor of terror and anxiety beginning to shoot through his spine.

In fact, his back was cold too and whenever he tried to move his arms or legs, they wouldn't budge-like they were stuck.

Ickis began to panic, making hurried noises as he thrashed around in his constriants violently.

"Cease your movement," barked a command from the far right of the room, and Ickis squeaked as fear bled through his veins. "State your business here."

Ickis blinks, horribly confused, "What?"

A green creature was suddenly above him, straddling him without even making a sound against the metal, big ruby orbs narrowed at Ickis and the little monster found himself oddly intraced by those eyes.

"Who sent you?" The green creature seethes, a toothy snarl on his face as he leaned in, just a few inches away from Ickis's face.

"N-No one! I came by myself!" Ickis wailed despairingly, waiting for Oblina and Krumm to come to his rescue, but they made no entrance. The green creature's mouth peels back into a snarl.

"YOU LIE!" It screeched, the sound bouncing off the wall like a gunshot and Ickis flinched.

"If no one sent you, why did you attack me?" The green creature asks, voice reeking of poison as his mouth pursed into an agitated line.

"Attack? I didn't! I was trying to scare you!" Ickis explained, watching the slow arch of an invisible brow.

"Fool," The green thing spit, the momentary smirk deepening into a sneer. "The almighty ZIM fears nothing."

'Nothing' comes out in a long, eerily slow hiss, and Ickis wonders if he's seen Zim somewhere in the acadmy. He's certainly scary enough to be a monster, with those harsh eyes, dagger-like teeth and antennas like a cockroach.

"I'm really sorry I scared you," Ickis said, sounding weak and very much scared himself. "I won't do it again, I promise!"

Zim laughs again, an unsettling sound, it's a handful of giggles that are raw and gritty. Ickis notes that Zim has claws too, they're longer and alot sharper then his (points like the end of a knife, and just as deadly).

"Can I please go?" Ickis begged, unable to meet the wide and ruby gaze that grew madder by the moment.

"Not likely," Zim hisses, the little monster doesn't see a gloved hand moving to grab something off the small tray next to the autopsy table. "Give me one reason not to rip out your insides out."

Ickis shakes, the breaths he heaves sound more like sobs as he watches the green creature run his thumb down the sharp edge of a scalpel. It leaves a deep wound, translucent pink drips down, it's sharp enough.

Arbitrary sounds fall out of the magenta monster's mouth, pleading whimpers as the blade pressed against his break-able neck moved up and down, scraping against the skin teasingly.

"Please, I'll do anything you want!" Ickis screamed out, attempting to move away from the blade as much as he could.

Zim's eyes move up to watch the other, quirking an antenna as if it were an inquisitive eyebrow. Something clatters against the lab floor, a polished boot kicks the blade under the table.


End file.
